Will North Fig Return from the Dead?

By Richard Risemberg|December 6, 2016

North Fig may be back from the dead, it seems. For a long time, the long-planned (and approved, and funded, and…) road diet for NELA’s main drag has languished, treated with malign neglect by DC1’s malignant Gil Cedillo, and considered, if at all, with resignation by our city’s battered bike advocacy world. Only Joe Bray-Ali has kept it in the news much at all, with this blog and his Fig4All campaign….

But now, The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition seems poised to make some sort of statement on the issue, though what it might entail, we don’t know yet. Could be a bold push, could be a timid accommodation. But, we have a chance to find out!

The LACBC’s Tamika Butler has announced a “Meetup with Tamika” at the Arroyo Seco library, the handsome riverstone building on Fig just west of York Boulevard, and North Figueroa will be one of the subjects to be discussed. This is scheduled for Thursday, December 8th, at half-past six. Yes, two days from this posting….

This is not, then, a meeting to miss if you’re a NELA stakeholder with any interest in bicycling specifically, and transportation issues generally. It will be a chance to let the county’s self-proclaimed bike advocacy leadership know what it is you, as NELA residents, want from them when they march into city offices on your behalf.

The event page shows only nine RSVPs so far; let’s see if we can make it ninety, with the grassroots advocates who have been working so hard on the North Fig Road Diet representing the community viewpoint. We don’t want two-block demos; we want the full-length road diet that the Council approved and funded years ago, before Cedillo’s ascension!

One Comment

While standard bike lanes and a road diet on N Fig would certainly be an upgrade, I think the only cure to the streets horrid design are protected bike lanes on the whole corridor; which I believe is what the LA Mobility Plan 2035 calls for.